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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Zoya America and the land of the free?

If you don't already know there is a huge drama going on right now with Zoya and their 4th of July promo. The promo states get a free Zoya America and shipping with $10 purchase. Last night someone figured out that there was a glitch and the could be used no matter what amount you had in your cart. Now this excited a LOT of people. Especially people like me who have no disposable income but love Zoya polishes or want to try them. There was quite a lot of speculation going on last night as to whether the glitch would be honored or not. Previously other companies have had glitches like this and they chose to honor them. Almost everyone agreed that it would be bad marketing to not do so. And then they put out a statement on their Facebook page saying that all orders who did not have the $10 worth of stuff in their account would be cancelled. Now this statement has caused quite a bit of hmmm, what's the word I'm looking for? Mixed feelings? Strong words? Let's just say that people are attacking each other for what their opinion is. If you'd like to read everything people are saying you can check out Zoya's Facebook page. Basically it boils down to people who understand why they cancelled the orders but are still sad about it, people who think Zoya should honor the orders since it was their glitch, and people who think the ones who want the orders honored freebie hunters only and not real customers.

Here is my opinion: I think it is any company's obligation to test and check everything before releasing it to the public. Obviously they failed to do so and I believe they should honor the orders. (Not just saying that because my order was cancelled lol) See I own Zoya polishes already so I know how great they are. Having called and spoken with a customer service rep before I also know how great that service usually is. I firmly believe that if they let everyone get their orders they would have gained a huge customer pool. I'm sure most of the bloggers would have reviewed it (and for some blogs with thousands of followers that alone could have made Zoya a huge profit from new customers). After all I found out about Zoya from a blog and the author raving about it. I think due to them cancelling the orders they are potentially losing a lot of the same customers they could have made a fan for life. Also I think Zoya polishes are very littleto be charging $8 a piece for which is why I've only purchased at promo time(edit: checked and they are the standard size). Anywho that is a little bit of what's happening in the world of polish today and my opinion on it. What is yours? As always, thanks for stopping by :)

I agree. I do see the other points of views as well though. I really think tempers would be less high if they would have sent an email notice as well as cancelling orders and I really dislike their statement on Facebook taking no blame for the glitch and instead putting it all on customers.

I wish they would have honored it, but I can understand why they didn't. If this were their plan, they would have opened it up to the first x amount of people, which would have been acceptable. If you think about it, more than 1,000 people probably did the free Zoya thing, which would make them lose money. And besides, it's not fair to the people who actually bought $10 worth of stuff to get America free. They'd be missing out on saving the $10 and still getting America. So in a way, I can definitely see why they canceled the orders and I can respect that. Would I have liked them to honor it? Most definitely. But that's just my greedy side speaking. :)

I think they shouldn't honor for the simple fact that if their original promo said you had to spend $10 well you had to spend $10...So if you get say 2 polishes that's $16 your getting a free polish $8 savings and $6.95 on shipping...Zoya does a lot in terms of promos unlike other big brand companies but at the end of the day these companies are in the business of making money so I can't blame them

From what I am seeing and hearing it had to be at least $10. So if you got an $8 polish and your America for free that wouldn't count either. And one of the posts on their Facebook page says no color spoons. So you would have to buy 2 polishes or other things to get to at least $10. But you're right it is all about money.

I think it's only right that they cancel it, Freebie Hunter pages are ridiculous and I can't see any company honoring a loss of $8 x 165,000 just cause people wanna be greedy. Zoyas promos are great and this one is too I guess I should have looked into it further before ordering, although it does suck i won't be getting it free :(

For a bit of perspective, they said the servers crashed after 165k visitors. If each of them only ordered the polish at no charge, it would have equaled $1,320,000 worth of product with no profit margin. Requiring the $10 order would either give them a slight profit margin or evened out. Outside of that, there is the logistics involved. What would it take to make 165k bottles of red nail polish? The labor costs, production costs, packaging costs, and shipping costs to be able to meet those orders (all for free, mind you) would be ridiculously high in order to meet the 5-9 day shipping deadline. And it might have even been a task impossible to complete.

Maybe if it were only a few hundred to even a few thousand orders then they could have honored them. Would it have been fair to honor only some of the orders until they were unable to fill them anymore? No. Just as it's unfair for an entire company to have to take that big of a hit because of someone's oversight. They clearly stated the necessary requirements to take advantage of the promotion. They are well within their right to cancel all orders that don't meet the requirements.

Now there are some people (like me) who placed the order and didn't know it was a glitch until later. It's crazy and disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. Though I will say I'm disappointed in Zoya for not sending an email notification about the order cancellation. If I decided to not get on Facebook today, I would still be in the dark.

Finally, they have fixed the original glitch, but there is a leftover element of it. Adding a bottle of polish ($8) and America to your cart and then entering the code will still produce the free bottle, which is likely why they've cancelled all orders that don't meet requirements. As a programmer, it is not always easy or quick to find an error in a program. One misspelled variable or missing semicolon can break everything. Hopefully, they will have it fixed soon and have learned from their oversight.

Well thought out and concise reply, thank you. I see what you mean especially when its all spelled out like that. Not knowing how their production is (for all we know it could be almost completely hands on or it could be almost completely computerized and mechanical) its hard to guess production costs. Having made oversights in the past I do see what you mean. And having tried to do just simple coding here I know how hard it can be lol. I do hope that the one bottle of polish and the code will work after all things seemed to work last night.

So much has been said on both sides of the issue so I will make my comment short. I am disappointed with Zoya because (a) they should have troubleshooted the promo code before releasing it; (b) should have been more polite to its customers after the glitch; and (c) should have offered at least something when they messed up. I did end up reusing the code, but I do wish Zoya would have done something else for us.

The most troubling thing about the whole situation is how we were treating one another. People were called ignorant, and that is never okay. Discussions need to be respectful. I understand that some people (including myself!) wanted a freebie. What's wrong with that?! I was only using the code provided for me. I hope that we can all learn from this, especially Zoya!

Very well said :) I agree with all those points and there is nothing wrong with wanting a freebie! I think its wrong when someone had a huge fit about not getting it while saying they didnt even like it. Everyone should be respectful even despite differences in opinions.

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About Me

I'm Lena, I'm 25 and addicted to doing my nails and all that comes with it. I love nail polish almost any and all but in particular anything glitter, shimmer or duochrome. This a blog all about nails and my foray into the nail art world :)